Bassist and composer James Ilgenfritz (2011 AIR) returns to ISSUE, joined by Joe McPhee and AC Diamond for their first performance as a trio. This event marks a new shared context for three artists deeply invested in improvisation as a mode of inquiry.
ISSUE presents the premiere of three audiovisual compositions by Matt Mottel (2010 AIR). These works bring Mottel’s distinct artistic sensibility into dialogue with formative figures in his life and in New York’s avant-garde, tracing a lineage that is both deeply personal and central to ISSUE’s history.
Monarch Butterfly by rocío sánchez (2026 AIR) features Melissa Almaguer (tap dance and percussion) and Kenneth Jiménez (double bass). Together, the trio explores the elusive monarch’s migratory journey through sound and movement, with each instrument articulating distinct states of motion.
Isabella Thorpe-Woods presents "Envelop/e," her second program as ISSUE’s 2026 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow. Bringing together choreographers Jade Manns and Ella Dawn W-S for site-specific duets, they navigate presence and absence, repetition and rupture, and the tension between inherited geometries and shifting landscapes.
"Spiriting Off" is a new solo work by luthier Webb Crawford (2026 AIR) for electric guitar, tenor banjo, and five-string banjo.
ISSUE closes the summer season with the return of Matana Roberts (2009 AIR). Opening the evening, Ben Vida (2013 AIR) will perform music from his 2026 release, "Oblivion Seekers" with vocalist Sara Magenheimer.
Artists-In-Residence 2015
Williams' final residency presentation is a collaborative textile, video, sonic, and linguistic work that centers on the intersections between a screen and its projection and on the unseen gestures that vanish into the surface of images they create.
Cellist Okkyung Lee and trumpeter Amir ElSaffar are distinguished instrumentalists with formidable reputations for their exploratory performance techniques and genre-blurring approach to musical styles. This acoustic performance features Lee and ElSaffar each performing solo sets, and in their first collaborative duo.
Keith Connolly, aka L.GRAY opens his ISSUE Project Room residency with A BLACKSTAR VALENTINE. A love letter in sound and vision to the Duke and the Baron, the event features PAPASHEROS (L.GRAY, JF Ryan, and Lala Ryan), Pigeons, and a very special appearance by legendary Japanese singer-songwriter Morio Agata.
ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Mariana Valencia’s Originators is a choreography and lecture shaped from the language of history and dance. This dense activation of content doesn't claim itself to a genre— rather, Originators proposes a new space where blended mediums meet without a hierarchy of value.
Korean filmmaker Hangjun Lee and improvising musician Chulki Hong have collaborated since 2006 as the audiovisual research project “Expanded Celluloid, Extended Phonograph”. Their practice has explored the performativity of the darkroom, the screening room, the private studio, and here in live performance.
ISSUE Members are welcomed for a sneak peek at our 22 Boerum Pl. theater at this invitation-only Year-End Celebration. Artist-In-Residence Dawn Kasper premieres "Not There", a new improvisational score inspired by the Lakota myth of Iktomi that illustrates a tale of deception. Preceded by an open-bar reception.
Artists-In-Residence 2015
A talk by Evan Calder Williams develops around two fields of inquiry: the practice of weaving and the concept of the grotesque. Continuing his interest in the essay form as experimental historical montage, Williams moves between the daily and fantastic, passing amongst pixels, tombs, and factories.
ISSUE returns to our 22 Boerum Pl. theater for a unique event before the final stage of construction begins. Pioneering artist Joan Jonas performs. GABI is joined by Michael Pisaro. Charles Bernstein, Mónica de la Torre, and Elizabeth Willis read, and David Grubbs performs, in recognition of Susan Howe.